Mother kept neglected baby hidden in drawer under her bed for three years
Malnourished toddler lived first years of life in draw isolated from siblings in case that ‘defies belief’
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A woman who kept her baby in a drawer under her bed until she was discovered weeks before her third birthday has been jailed for seven-and-a-half years.
The child, discovered at the family home in Cheshire, was found with matted hair, deformities and rashes, Chester Crown Court heard.
The court was told the mother, who cannot be named to protect the identity of her children, concealed the baby’s presence from her siblings by hiding her in the drawer of her divan bed and kept her secret from her partner, who often stayed at the house.
Sentencing the woman, who admitted child cruelty, Honorary Recorder of Chester Judge Steven Everett said: “To my mind what you did totally defies belief.
“You starved that little girl of any love, any proper affection, any proper attention, any interaction with others, a proper diet, much-needed medical attention.”
He added: “You attempted to control this situation as carefully as you could but by sheer chance your terrible secret was discovered.
“The consequences for (the child) were nothing short of catastrophic – physically, psychologically and socially.”
He said the child was an “intelligent little girl who is now perhaps slowly coming to life from what was almost a living death in that room”.
The court heard the woman did not seek medical assistance for the child’s cleft palate and did not give her adequate food and water, feeding her milky Weetabix through a syringe.
Sion ap Mihangel, prosecuting, said: “She was kept in a drawer in the bedroom, not taken outside, not socialised, no interaction with anybody else.”
He told the court the child had a developmental age of nought to 10 months when she was first taken into hospital and was significantly malnourished and dehydrated.
Mr ap Mihangel said the infant was left alone while her mother took her other children to school, went to work and when she stayed with relatives over Christmas.
When the mother’s boyfriend began to stay at the property overnight the child was moved into another room and left there alone, the court was told.
The youngster was discovered when her partner returned to the house one morning to use the toilet after the mother had left.
He heard a noise and entered one of the bedrooms, where he saw the child.
The man left the home but alerted family members and later that day social services attended and found the child in the drawer of the bed.
In a statement, the social worker said she saw the child sitting in the drawer and asked the mother whether that was where she kept her daughter.
“She replied matter of factly ‘yes, in the drawer’,” the social worker said.
“I was shocked the mother did not show any emotion and appeared blase about the situation.
“It became an overwhelming horror that I was probably the only other face (the child) had seen apart from her mother’s.”
Two police officers involved in the case were in tears as a statement from the child’s foster carer, which the judge described as “truly devastating”, was read to court.
The carer said: “It became very apparent she did not know her own name when we called her.”
In interview, the woman told police she had not known she was pregnant and was “really scared” when she gave birth.
She said the baby was not kept in the drawer under the bed all the time and said the drawer was never closed, but told officers the child was “not part of the family”.
She told social workers she had an abusive relationship with the child’s father and did not want him to find out about her.
Matthew Dunford said there had been an “exceptional set of circumstances” including the woman’s mental health, a volatile relationship with the father of the child and the Covid lockdown.
The defendant wiped tears away with a tissue as he described how her other children, who she was said to have looked after well, no longer lived with her.
Senior crown prosecutor Rachel Worthington, of CPS Mersey-Cheshire, said: “This child has never had a birthday present, a Christmas present or anything to recognise these days. She’s had no interaction with any of her siblings.
“She hadn’t known daylight or fresh air and didn’t respond to her own name when she was first found.”
She added: “The motive behind the mother’s behaviour is still not clear, but that is not the role of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
“Our job is to bring the person responsible to justice.
“That has now been done and it is the profound hope of the CPS that the victim in this case recovers sufficiently to live as full a life as possible.”
The woman pleaded guilty in October to four counts of child cruelty, reflecting her failure to seek basic medical care for the child, abandonment, malnourishment and general neglect.